


Blank Space

by orphan_account



Series: Witches and Crones [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Trans!Kankri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6680104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cronus Ampora is a very successful proprietor of love potions. Too bad he has no soulmate of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blank Space

Your name is Cronus Ampora, and you bottle love.

Love is, maybe, a misnomer, but that’s what people call it. You actually bottle a mixture of intense affection, happiness, and a minor hint of obsessive behavior, which is what the proprietary blend of feelings nature hands out actually is. Like every other emotion, though, the sort of love that you bottle is a fleeting thing that dissipates over time, spiking back occasionally. It’s healthy and normal for it to do that.

However, this is where a lot of problems in people’s lives occur. They realize soulmateships or even the rare relationships outside of them take a lot more than just being madly in love with each other every second of every day.

This is where you come in.

Or, really, where your potion comes in. Licensed therapists use it every damn day to make couples feel what they felt at first blush, and help them to realize that all healthy emotions cycle through and that there’s nothing wrong with not feeling madly, deeply, truly for your partner one hundred percent of the time. This is also the only legal way anybody obtains your product without getting it direct from you, since laws prohibit it otherwise as a potential date rape drug. You agree. Anybody who sells love potions on the down-low – or those who use them for filthy ends – are dirt beneath your feet, as far as you’re concerned.

There’s only one loophole though, and one that wouldn’t exist back in England: under American law, you’re allowed to use any self-produced blend of potion that’s for legal purposes, and is agreed upon by someone under your care with full knowledge of effects and no intent for permanent changes. A lot of the international law community thinks it’s really fucking reckless stricture. You agree. But you are also very, very desperate.

This is because you are one of the agonizingly lonely few in the world who is entirely unassigned to a soulmate.

Which doesn’t mean that you go assaulting people in dark alleyways, forcing your potion down their throat. You don’t keep a harem of people doped up on intense doses, either. What you do is post very discreet messages that can only be read by people already up for sex with someone outside of their current relationship, whatever it is.

There are a lot of soulmates – platonic and romantic – who don’t give a shit who their partner sleeps with, and vice versa. It’s an ideal compromise; they want someone to fuck, and weaker love potions give intense feelings of joy and pleasure for a couple of hours.

You? You just want to escape.

You want to lay in someone’s arms after you’ve helped them fuck themselves senseless. You want someone to kiss you like they mean something more than it. You just want someone to say your fucking name like it’s more than six letters mashed into two syllables and one phrase that’s only useful for contracts and a mailing address, your last name far more attractive for billboards and television ads (Ampora Aphrodisiacs, the answer to all your relationship woes!).

When they wake up in the morning and you part ways, that’s the end of it. They can leave you feeling as hollowed out as ever, a numbness stinging in your chest and all through your veins, the palm that should be a secret link connecting you to the other half of your heart itching. Money’s coming your way. It’s always coming your way. Your potions are the most effective because you are so desperate for love that you pour yourself into every goddamn batch.

You aren’t a whore and you aren’t selling anything. The potion costs nothing and you offer to blank their minds, if they want it. It’s easy to help muddle people’s memories if they don’t want to remember. A lot of people take you up on the offer – they get a pleasant, hazy memory of how good everything felt, but nothing about you in face, name, address. You could be anyone.

The doorbell rings. It’s late evening and you’ve just had your second cup of coffee for the day. Your mornings are always late. No one seems to mind.

You open the door and eyes peep up at you, wide like they weren’t quite expecting it. It’s okay. Some people are shy until they know you’re the guy they’re looking for. Nobody wants to be caught searching for a bindless fuck.

“Cronus?” he asks, and you step aside to let him in.

Patent on your potion has bought you a lot of nice things, even if it’s kind of hard to tell. You sleep and work in an apartment because too much space just reminds you of how many people aren’t in your life. But it’s nice and cool and it smells like fresh coffee. It’s still in tasteful shades of taupe, with marble counters and big windows that fill the room with light when the curtains aren’t thrown over them, like they are now.

“Have a seat.” you say. “Coffee?”

“Yes.” he says, and sits down like you told him to. You’ve had people dandle over the counters, flop over your couch, whatever – he takes a seat at the table. Seems like one of those straightlaced types, too. That’s okay. You don’t mind.

“Thank you.” he adds as he takes the cup from your hands. There’s sugar and cream on the table, even if you drink yours black. You expected him. Somehow, you always expect when someone’s due to come around. The boy takes his black, too.

He really must be one of those shy types, because he drains half of the cup very slowly until he actually makes eye contact with you again – his eyes are deep black, like his hair. His skin is much lighter than yours – you’re guessing Chinese, even if you’re both technically American. You assume, anyway.

“So, Kankri, what are you here for?” you ask, and it takes him off guard.

“Stay out of my head!” he snaps, and you grin. He flushes very easily in anger. You like it.

“I did. It’s sealed over your bag.” you reply, looking at him from over your coffee mug. His ears heat up, now, beneath the tufted, thick crests of his hair. “Now – what are you here for?”

You like to know. You don’t want to take advantage of people. As obnoxious as you were in your teens, it didn’t get you anywhere. Begging only goes so far before it becomes coercion, and neither have ever gotten you any closer to a soulmate. Or even a mate, period.

“I’m… Asexual.” he says, turning the cup in his hands. “But… I enjoy sex? The feeling. I want to know if… I haven’t met the right person, or if it’s really just that I don’t feel that sort of thing.”

“Can do, chief.” you say. He bites the inside of his cheek, you can see the indent from the outside.

“You don’t… If I make you promises-“

“Won’t hold you to ‘em. I don’t take anything, myself.”

His eyes go wide again. It’s normal – that always surprises people. They assume you want what they do. That’s alright.

“Don’t you need to feel attached?” he asks you, tentatively.

Your smile is practiced not to be bitter, but you can’t keep it entirely out of your eyes. With another kind of practiced gesture, you reach out, brush your fingers across his hair, stroke his cheek. Your eyes look deep into his. “I’m already in love with you.”

It’s not a lie. If love is a drug then you are a junkie. Everyone you meet could be someone, could complete you in a way you’ve never been completed. Someone could love you back. They often do, however temporary.

You stand, walk over to your refrigerator. The potion is best served chilled, keeps better that way and condenses the intensity of it. Usually you water it down, but you pour a glass of the full potency stuff for him. You don’t know if it works different on asexual people, but you’re willing to just go ahead and stay on the safe side.

He puts the coffee aside a little ways and takes the glass from you – it’s no bigger than a shot glass, easy to shoot back. He hesitates before taking it all down in one gulp, his eyes opening wide for a third time as he regrets it.

“That tastes exactly like a strawberry milkshake!” he exclaims, and you smile.

“Yeah, well, it’s whatever taste you like best. Part of what makes the blend proprietary. If any of you knobs would stop and smell it first, it smells like your favourite thing, too. Couldn’t quite work in sound, though.” you tell him, watching him smile for a second before he shivers a little.

His pupils blow wide, the second side effect, and his mouth falls slightly agape. He’s staring at you like the best actor to ever play a goddamn Romeo, and you forcibly remove the part of yourself that’s warning you the empty look there tomorrow is going to fuck you up. You don’t care. You just want him to look at you like that now, for as long as he can.

“You’re beautiful.” he says, and his voice is soft. Kankri steps forward, reaches out and brushes you, jolts when his fingers touch actual skin. “I can’t believe you’re real.”

“I know.” you say, and you kiss the little cherry mouth he has. It parts in a sigh, and you spend a few minutes like that. Kissing him, stroking his hair. “Is there anything you don’t like, baby?”

“I’ll do anything for you.” he says, and you pet him.

“I know. But it would make me happy if I knew you were doing it for you.” you say, and it’s all magic to him. The sound of your voice enraptures his aural canals, sends shivers down his spine. “You’ll tell me if somethin’ don’t feel good, won’t you sweetheart?”

He nods so fast you think he’s going to snap his neck. You settle it between your hands, lead him backwards into your bedroom, kissing him every now and again because his face is so flush with love you think he might die if you don’t.

You lay him out on the bed, run your hands over his stomach. He sighs, arches into your touch. He has little breasts and you figure out pretty quick he has a cunt too, but that’s okay. You don’t care how people modify their signatures, you couldn’t possibly. It might cut out the person you were meant for.

“You’re cute, Kankri.” you tell him, rubbing your fingers against the soft folds that are already wet and swollen for you, so ready to be yours. It’s easy to take your time though, and you kiss his neck, suck on his nipples, squeeze his small breast like you’re trying to milk it. He keens, rubs his legs together, bucks up against the fingers you still have playing with his cunt.

You have silk sheets – less because you started sleeping in them when you thought they might be alluring as a teen and more that you continued because they feel real fucking nice – and Kankri looks beautiful all curled up in them, face and hair cocooned by aubergine shine. He can stand laying back for all of two seconds before he’s up, kissing you again, his arms wrapped around your neck.

His body moves against yours, and you have to exercise a pretty fucking amazing amount of strength to peel his figure away. He’s got a thick figure, and it’s so soft and hot, and he was rubbing that slit of his over the seat of your pants so nice –

“Hold up a second, kitten. Let me get our affairs in order. Don’t want to have to take care of any details tomorrow.” He can still bear, you can sense that as much as the rest of his information in his signature, all the more now that he’s temporarily smitten with you. He’s an open book, if one you haven’t entirely got the gist of yet. You unbuckle your pants, manage a condom on before you touch him again, solicitous as you toe off your boots.

The boy rips your damn shirt off like it’s a dirty word. Your pants don’t fare much better, and when he forces you back onto the mattress, you don’t struggle.

“I want you so much.” he tells you, climbing on top of your lap, lining your cock up to that hot little slit again. You feel the ring of muscle move over you, and barely have a second before he’s squeezing down around you. He’s so fucking ready, he means what he’s saying. His pupils could be black holes. You feel your soul getting sucked in, and you moan when he bucks down against you the first time. “I love you, Cronus.”

“Kankri –“ you gasp, and he bucks again at the sound of his name in your mouth like it’s something holy. “Kankri, Kankri, Kankri –“

“Do you love me?” he asks back, hushed but harried as he bends over you, kisses your mouth again and again. He bites at your lips, his walls squeeze around your prick. It isn’t going to take either of you long, and you feel your gut coil with it. “Do you?”

“Always, cherry pie. Nnah- Al-always. “ you say, groaning as he picks up the pace on top of you. It’s wild and almost uncoordinated, he needs you that bad right now. You respond with gentle rolls of your hips back, though mostly your hands are in his hair, and your lips are swallowing his sounds.

When he comes, it’s with a scream, and you fuck him through two more rounds of orgasm, rubbing his clit and sucking on his tongue until he almost bites it off with how intense everything is. It’s only then that you let yourself finish, with a slow shudder and his name on your tongue. You’re very good with names. You love Kankri. You love everyone.

After he climbs off of you and you wrap up your condom and chuck it to the side, you lay with him in your arms. His twine around you, his body still soft and hot against yours now that you’re both beneath the covers. His pupils are still blown out as he just stares at you through half lidded eyes, kisses everywhere his mouth can reasonably reach.

“Goodnight, honey.” you tell him when you physically can’t stay awake, and he kisses you again.

“Goodnight, Cronus.” he says. “I love you.”

You dream that night of what you always dream of, the same dream you’ve had, without variation, since you turned twenty. You write a heart down on your hand. It does not disappear into the skin. Not in an hour, not in the whole day. You write on your other hand. Your face. Your legs. Your throat. Your stomach.

There is no reply.

The next day greets you with extreme prejudice. It always feels that way, you’re not a morning person, and you hate them anyway. Even the dose you gave Kankri will have worn off by now, and you’re not surprised you awaken to an empty bed beside you and an emptier feeling inside.

He’s not entirely gone. Just in the kitchen, sitting at your table, a cup of coffee in his hands. Sometimes people do this, either for their own convenience or because they feel they should do something for you. It’s not wise to piss off a witch, even a sellout witch with no soulmate.

“Cronus, I have to be clear with you.” he says when you sit down, and this is new. You sip your coffee.

“I know you don’t love me for real. It’s okay. I can fuzz the details for you.” you reply. He stares at you with those round eyes again. His pupils are normal, but he’s alarmed.

“No! No, no. Well. I mean, yes, obviously. But.” he bites the inside of his cheek again. “There’s… A reason I sought you out. Different from what I mentioned. I mean, I am asexual, that was… Part of it, but.”

“But?”

“I’m unmatched, too.” he says.

Your veins feel like an ice flow has just started running through them. Like adrenaline has hit you hard, and you can’t decide whether to fight or flee because death is staring you straight in the eye.

Never, not for one second, did you ever consider there were people like you. When your father had you examined and the doctors had said that there had been “cases”, you had thought… You had thought they meant rare, historical kinds of things. You had been something disgusting. You had been abhorrent.

Kankri is looking at you.

“I thought, given our relative rarity, and the… disparity we face in the world. We might… Have an interest in meeting.” he explains, lacing his fingers like this is a business deal. Like you might walk away with your potion to a competitor. “I understand if you feel betrayed, given my method of meeting you, but given what you do I wanted to be sure you were a reputable kind of person and… That the rumour was true –“

“Yes.” you say. He stares.

“Yes what?”

“Stay.” you say, and your hand shoots out. “Or don’t, just. I thought –“

“You were the only one?” he asks. “You were broken? You’re being punished? You’re undesirable?”

You don’t even feel the tears welling in your eyes until they’re spilling, and Kankri gets up, moves around to your side of the table. He hugs his body close to yours, and even though it’s through the thick material of his jumper, it feels better and more intimate than it did last night. All those years of silent agony, all those disgusted looks you’d gotten to anybody you’d tried to tell, all the time you’d spent trying to tell which part of you was disgusting so that you could take it out, could make people really want you –

“I know.” he says, and he takes a handkerchief out of his pocket. Who the fuck even carries those, you think, but you take it all the same, trying to draw in breaths. “I understand. I… Thought that way for a long time, too. But… I thought we might provide each other friendship, if nothing else.”

“Stay.” you say again, fists curling into his jumper. When you pull him down onto your lap and bury your face in his shoulder, he doesn’t stop you. There’s nothing sexual about it. “Please.”

His fingers stroke your hair.

“Alright.” he tells you, and you feel a new wave of tears spring from your eyes as you clutch him. You’re happy. You’re so happy. Kankri. It isn’t a soulmateship. It isn’t even love. But it’s something. Something that you can’t sell or buy.

Understanding.

And you wouldn’t trade it for all the love potions in the world.


End file.
